Several months ago during a casual conversation, I was described
by someone as being a radical. When he first said it I didn't
know whether I should laugh or be offended. It never quite
dawned on me until then that my standing up against spiritual
homophobia, writing a gay spiritual book and producing and
hosting a national black gay TV talk show would qualify me for
radical status, but apparently in the minds of some it has.

Prior to this particular conversation, my mental concept of
radicalism or the word radical represented outdated images of
white women burning their bras in protest of anything male
dominated or people chaining themselves to century old oak trees.

So now I asked myself, what exactly is a radical? Is it someone
who marches down the street shouting, screaming, and decrying
the injustices of the day? Or is it someone who commits
outrageous acts of protest capturing his/her 3 minutes of fame
on the evening news?

And how exactly does a radical mind think? Does it wake up every
morning determined to rock the boat of society? Or does a
radical mind intentionally try to kick in the front teeth of the
status quo just for kicks?

In reality I believe that the face, the voice, and the causes of
radicalism are as diverse as mankind itself. After giving much
thought and research on the matter, I now have a much stronger
understanding of what is and what is not a radical or radicalism.

Standing up for oneself does not necessarily make one a radical.
Even standing up against an entire institution or society (i.e
homophobic church or heterosexual majority) doesn't always make
one a radical either. The act of standing up is but one
component of radicalism.

Screaming, shouting, and protesting the injustices of the day
does not make one a radical either. Although America still
vividly remembers the 1960's Civil Rights and Vietnam War images
of protests as clear examples of radicalism, I actually counter
that marching down a city street, chaining oneself to a tree or
a building isn't exactly a definition of radicalism but more of
a symbolic act of it.

After deeper analysis, I have come to the conclusion that what
makes one a radical are the following components:

1. When a person mentally and emotionally rejects all that they
know to be true about their existing reality, existing life and
of the existing society which surround them and then begins to
critically think and re-think everything that has been
programmed into them (i.e homophobia, racism, sexism, etc); this
becomes the first major step towards radicalism.

You see, radical minded people daily reject the status quo and
express their lives accordingly. Even further, although they may
respect authority, radical minded people still question its use
and/or misuse. But most importantly, radical minded people are
critical thinkers.

Radicals just don't wake up one morning and decide to overthrow
a government. It often takes many years of self-analysis,
reflection, prayer, meditation, dialogue, and research before
the ultimate stand against the status quo actually occurs.
Hence, critical analysis is a major key to becoming a radical.

2. Radical minded people seek personal freedoms, whether it's
the freedom to own property, to vote, marry, run for public
office, or to access public services. The act of being denied,
restrained, impaired, or hindered is the octane fuel which
drives the pursuit of freedom. Hence, radicalism is driven by
the inherent desire to be free. Examples of past American
concepts of radicalism include the abolitionist movement,
feminism struggle, civil rights era, and now the gay rights
fight for equal protection as well as the right and the freedom
to marry.

Just as slaves did not have any personal freedoms, women did not
have the right to vote, and several generations later blacks
were still fighting for full equality under the U.S.
constitution; the theme which runs similar in all of these
instances is "freedom." The desire to be free. Further, radical
minded people not only seek their own personal freedoms, they
also seek freedoms for others even at the cost of retaliation
against themselves.

3. Contrary to popular belief, radical minded people are
actually very patient people. Social movements can take many
years to build and to execute. A true radical understands that
revolutions and evolutions within society do not occur overnight
or within the next calendar year.

Hence, radical minded people are strategic thinkers as well as
critical thinkers. They strategically and critically assess the
social changes which must take place and then move forward in
multiple ways, methods, and fashions to achieve it.

4. Finally, radical minded people understand that it really
isn't about them per se, but instead they recognize and
understand that its about allowing a greater power, a greater
plan, and a greater pathway to flow though their existence into
a glorious fruition.

Radical minded people accept that they might not actually reap
the total rewards and benefits of their efforts, but instead
understand that each and every generation which follows them
will. Thus radicals are the social architects which build,
construct, and solidify a new world order for the entirety of
mankind.

So when I reflect upon this interpretation of what it means to
be a radical and in my case, a gay radical, then I proudly sign
up for the label and all that goes with it. To be the change
that is needed, to be catalyst which ignites, and to be the
finger of the hand of God which moves its divine will throughout
the course of time is more than enough payoff for me. So I'm
hanging on for the ride!

It seems that just about every preacher, politician, and youth worker has opinions about how much media young people consume today. But now there's some information much more exact than opinions.
"Generation M: Media in the Lives of 8-18- Year-olds" from the Kaiser Family Foundation is the latest study to examine kids and their media consumption. The study, based on interviews with more than 2,000 students, contains tons of charts and graphs, a handful of stunning findings, and some practical suggestions about what parents and others who care about kids can do to guide them through today's media morass.

"Media play a central role in the lives of today's children and adolescents," says the report. This statement won't surprise anyone who works with kids. But one thing that surprised researchers was the degree to which media consumption had surged since their last study in 1999.

Way back then, researchers examining the kinds of media available in children's households described these households as "media rich." Five years later, kids' households are better described as "media saturated."

"It is difficult to conceive of when (or how) today's young people might avoid media and media messages, even if they wanted to limit their media exposure," wrote the report's authors, who include Stanford University's Donald F. Roberts, who co-wrote an earlier book on kids and rock music entitled It's Not Only Rock and Roll.

I WANT MY TV.. MY INTERNET....AND MY COMP.
Kids between 8 and 18 spend over six hours a day consuming media, and thanks to multitasking (surfing the Web while listening to music), they take in 8 1/2 hours worth of media entertainment and information during those six hours.

Until more kids learn to live without sleeping, it seems that most won't spend more than six hours a day consuming media. "We are approaching (or have reached) a ceiling on media use," say the report authors. But with multitasking on the increase, the intake of more and more kinds of media during that sixhour window is expected to continue growing.

Consuming media isn't the only thing kids do, but it takes up a significant chunk of their daily lives. Here's a look at how much time young people spend on some of the more important activities that fill their days:

Watching TV = 3:04
Hanging out with parents = 2:17
Hanging out with friends = 2:16
Listening to music = 1:44
Exercising, sports, etc. = 1:25
Watching movies/videos = 1:11
Using a computer = 1:02
Pursuing hobbies, clubs, etc. = 1:00

Media is a great leveling influence, and there's amazing uniformity in the consumption patterns of all kinds of kids. The only significant differences are that boys seem to like video games more than girls and African- Americans like TV more than other groups.

MAKING A DIFFERENCE
Parents, youth workers, and others concerned about kids' media consumption will be interested to know that there are three key factors that influence the amount of time kids spend with media. These factors are related to three important issues: availability of media technology, household media environment, and household rules governing media use.

As for technology, kids who have their own TV, video game equipment, or computer in their bedrooms spend an average of two more hours consuming media than kids whose rooms are less well-equipped. In addition, kids who have TVs in their rooms spend less time on leisure reading than kids who don't. The report found that more than two-thirds of young people between the ages of 8 and 18 have TVs in their rooms.

As for household environments, parents play an important role in guiding the ways their children relate to media. For example, the report talks at some length about what it calls "high TV-orientation homes." The report found that half of kids surveyed live in homes where the TV is "usually" on, and 60% are in homes where TV is on during dinner. Perhaps it's not surprising that such "high TV-orientation homes" create kids who are more media saturated than homes where there's more balance between media and other activities.

And when it comes to media use rules, there's a significant difference between kids who grow up in "anything goes" homes and those who live with guidelines for media consumption.

Less than half of all young people surveyed live with any kinds of controls on their media use. But those kids whose parents try to enforce some form of media rules routinely consume less media than kids who have no rules.

Media use rules vary widely. Some limit the amount of time kids consume media, while others focus on content (such as rules that are based on widely used rating systems for music, movies, and video games). But no matter what kinds of rules are in place, kids who live with rules seem to realize more readily that there's more to life than entertainment and Web surfing.

ASSESSING THE IMPACT
The authors of the "Generation M" study shy way from editorializing on the moral implications of their research. But they do point out two interesting correlations: Kids who have the highest media consumption levels have the lowest grades and the lowest levels of personal contentedness.

But we shouldn't hastily conclude that high media consumption causes low grades or lack of contentedness. Instead of high media use causing kids' problems, it may be the case that young people who do poorly at school or are depressed about life want to spend more time with media so they can forget about their problems.

And at least one author believes certain types of media consumption actually help people think. Steven Johnson, who had nothing to do with the Kaiser Family Foundation report, is the author of a new book entitled Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter.

Johnson's counterintuitive hypothesis argues that acclaimed TV shows like 24 and The Sopranos actually stimulate brain activity. They do so, Johnson says, by forcing viewers to carefully follow large numbers of characters, intersecting story lines, and morally complex situations.

Such shows provide "cognitive workouts,"says Johnson, who traced the ebbs and flows of a recent episode of 24 and found 21 distinct characters and nine primary narrative threads.

While there are still plenty of TV shows that play down to their audiences, Johnson provocatively argues that some of the more complex shows to hit TV screens in the wake of 1981's pioneering Hill Street Blues actually serve as intellectual wake-up calls for those viewers who are dedicated enough to follow them closely.

Ironically, the shows Johnson says are most intellectually demanding are the same shows that many conservative Christians love to hate, in part because they fail to give viewers black and white life lessons.

But Johnson believes the best shows are those that challenge viewers to think through their own values. "What media have lost in moral clarity, they have gained in realism," he wrote in the April 24 issue of The New York Times Magazine. "The world doesn't come in nicely packaged public-service announcements, and we're better off with entertainment like The Sopranos that reflects our fallen state with all its ethical ambiguity."

So here's the reader's handy summary paragraph. Researchers have proven that kids are consuming more media, but social observers disagree about whether this is good or bad. Maybe some future study will answer all these lingering questions.

But I suspect not.

Two ladies were having a chat in a supermarket. One said to the other, "What's the matter with you? You look so worried."
"I am," replied her friend. "I keep thinking about the world situation."
"Well," came the first lady's response. "You want to take things more philosophically and stop thinking!"

It's an extraordinary idea that the way to become more philosophical is to do less thinking. But the ladies in the story were reflecting the modern mood of anti-intellectualism, which has given birth to the ugly twins called mindlessness and meaninglessness. By contrast, consider the injunction of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:20. He begins with the same two words "Stop thinking," but he continues on: "Stop thinking like children…in your thinking grow up." But why should we use our minds?

TO GLORIFY
Firstly, to use our minds glorifies our Creator. It acknowledges that we have a rational Creator who made us rational beings in God's own image, a creator who has given us in nature and in Scripture a double rational revelation. Francis Bacon, the 17th century philosopher-statesman said (in The Advancement of Learning, 1605) that God has written not one book but two— the "book of God's words" (Scripture) and the "book of God's works" (nature). There's an important parallel between science and theology. Science is the attempt to understand what God has revealed in nature; theology is the attempt to understand what God has revealed in Scripture.

Both are investigations into divine revelation, explorations of God's mind. In both (to paraphrase the astronomer Johann Kepler as quoted in The Home Book of Quotations, 10th edition) we're thinking divine thoughts after God has thought them. As the great Albert Einstein once said, the only incomprehensible thing about the universe is its comprehensibility ("Physics and Reality" in Franklin Institute Journal, March 1936).

TO ENRICH
Secondly, to use our minds enriches our discipleship, no part of which is possible if we don't use them, every part of which is enriched if we do. Failure to use our minds in the Christian life condemns us to spiritual stagnation and perpetual immaturity.

My first example of this is worship. Every Christian is a worshipper. But we cannot worship God if we don't know God. Christians aren't like those Athenians whose altar Paul found inscribed "to an unknown god." No, worship is a response to revelation. That's why the reading and exposition of God's word in public worship is indispensable. The word of God is what evokes the worship of God. To worship is to "glory in God's holy name" (Psalm 105:3)—that is, to revel in who God is. So we have to dissent from that worshipper who said that he felt like unscrewing his head and putting it under his seat, since in worship he had no use for anything above his collar button. To be sure, our emotions are also involved, for sometimes in worship we're transported above and beyond ourselves. But in all true worship we're reflecting on the greatness and glory of God.

My second example is faith. It's amazing how many Christians imagine that faith and reason are mutually incompatible. After all, they're never placed in antithesis to one another in Scripture. Faith and sight are contrasted, but not faith and reason. For what is faith? Faith isn't a synonym for credulity or superstition. Faith is not "an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable" (H. L. Mencken, the so-called sage of Baltimore, in Prejudices: Third Series, 1923). No, faith is a reasoning trust. Consider Psalm 9:10, "Those who know your name put their trust in you." That is, we trust because we know that God is trustworthy. So the more we use our minds to reflect on the character, covenant, and promises of God, the more our faith is drawn out from us.

My third example of enriching our discipleship is guidance. We all want to discern God's will for our lives. But too many Christians regard the guidance of God as a convenient alternative to thought, a device for saving us the bother of thinking. They regard their minds as a screen onto which they expect God to flash answers to their questions and solutions to their problems. And of course God is free to do this. But the normal way of guidance is through the mental processes God has created, not in spite of them.

Notice the beautiful balance of Psalm 32:8, 9 (NIV):
I will instruct you and teach
you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.
Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.

Verse 8 contains a threefold promise of guidance: "I will instruct you…I will teach you the way you should go…I will counsel you with my eye upon you" (RSV). But verse 9 adds a prohibition to the promise: "Do not be like a horse or mule which lack understanding." In other words God says to us: "I promise I will guide you, but don't expect me to guide you as you guide horses and mules. Why not? For the simple reason that you aren't a horse or mule. To be sure, they have a rudimentary brain, but they lack understanding, intelligence, or wisdom. You, however, were made in my image rational beings and must use the minds which I have given you."

To sum up, in worship, faith, and guidance, and indeed in every aspect of our discipleship, we must use our God-given minds. Our progress will be seriously impeded if we don't, but wonderfully facilitated if we do.

TO STRENGHTEN
Thirdly, to use our minds strengthens our witness. One of the major reasons some people reject the gospel isn't that they perceive it to be false, but because they perceive it to be trivial. It doesn't seem to be big enough for the complex and tragic world in which we live. Of course it's right to simplify the gospel (it would be silly to complicate it), but it's wrong to trivialize it.

The apostles didn't make this mistake. On the contrary, they weren't afraid to use their minds and develop arguments in evangelism. In their ministry, apologetics and evangelism, the defense and proclamation of the gospel, went hand in hand. Paul defined his ministry in the words "We try to persuade others" (2 Corinthians 5:11). But we cannot persuade people without using arguments. To be sure, his trust was in the Holy Spirit, who alone can bring people to faith in Jesus, but the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. It brings people to faith not in spite of the evidence, but because of the evidence when people's minds are opened to attend to it. We need to be able to say to people what Paul said to the procurator Festus: "What I am saying is true and reasonable" (Acts 26:25).

Perhaps the best example is what Paul did in Ephesus when he visited it during his third missionary journey. He began his mission in the synagogue, but then rented the hall of Tyrannus for two years. There every day, some manuscripts adding "from the fifth hour to the tenth" (that is, from 11 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon), when most Ephesians would have been enjoying their midday siesta, Paul argued and debated the gospel. A daily five-hour lecture six days a week for two years is 3,120 hours of gospel argument. No wonder we read that "all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord" (Acts 19:10). For Ephesus was the capital of provincial Asia, and everybody came up to Ephesus at some point—to visit the library or the amphitheatre or the temple of Diana—and while there, many listened to Paul, were converted, and returned home newborn in Christ. It's a strategy for city-center evangelism that we need to recover today.

In conclusion, let us repent of the cult of mindlessness, of any residual intellectual laziness of which we may be guilty. Anti-intellectualism is a negative and destructive mindset. It insults God who has made us. It impoverishes us, hindering our spiritual growth, and it weakens our testimony in the world. Whereas a conscientious use of our minds glorifies God, enriches us, and strengthens our evangelistic witness. We come back to where we began: "in your thinking grow up!"

The slogan “safe sex” is dangerous. Many teens think it means that condoms and other contraceptives will stop pregnancy, AIDS, and various sex-related diseases.

But many who think they are practicing “safe” sex will instead find they are about to become parents, or will develop horrible sex diseases. How will they face their parents and friends? How will they cope with all the health and medical bills?

People who promote “safe sex” usually mean that if you use contraceptives while having sex you can avoid producing a baby and avoid getting diseases such as AIDS. This is not true.


Slogan tries to gain customers for abortion

“Safe sex” is a slogan that abortionists use to get more customers, and that contraceptive makers use to get more sales. It is also a slogan used by people who do not realize the only way to prevent pregnancy and sexual diseases is to not have sex at all.

Condoms fail, the Pill can have side effects, other contraceptives have various degrees of failure and health risks, and having an abortion means killing your baby. One study found when teens used condoms the failure rate of condoms was more than one in every three.


What does the Bible say?

The Bible has harsh words against having sex with anyone other than your husband or wife. The Bible calls it “fornication” between two unmarried people, and “adultery” if a married person has sex with someone other than their wife or husband.

When God gave the Ten Commandments to the Israelites, He told them not to commit adultery. (Exodus 20:14.) The Apostle Paul wrote that neither fornicators nor adulterers would inherit the Kingdom of God. (1 Corinthians 6:9.) And the Book of Proverbs in the Bible says that whoever commits adultery destroys their own soul (Proverbs 6:32).


Sex outside marriage is wrong

The Bible is clear that sex outside marriage is both wrong and dangerous. This makes sense. Think about it. If the person you marry has never had sex with anyone else, and neither have you, then neither of you can give the other person AIDS or a sexually transmitted disease through sex.

There is no embarrassment in married people having a baby. In fact, only within marriage can sex become the wonderful experience that God intended. And if God blesses your marriage with a baby, that will be joyful as well.

One final comment. Even if you have done wrong by having sex with someone outside marriage, God can forgive you, cleanse you, and prepare you for a new start in life. But you have to ask His forgiveness, commit your life to Him, and stop having sex until marriage.